the wrong side of the bed

Warning: I am going to be using the word "snap" an awful lot in this post. Can't be helped.

When I was in high school, my friend Clare and I would go through silly little obsessions. We pretend to be in love with Sting and our friend Adam. We drew pictures of woodpeckers all of the time. * We drew pictures of people with mohawks almost as frequently. ** We wrote ongoing stories about a blue stick figure and the characters in his life, like a cat named Dr. Sandoval.

We made many trips between Houston and Austin both together and separately. There used to be a warehouse with a drawing of a turtle snapping on the side. We didn't find the drawing terribly convincingly, so we would try to draw better snaps. Snaps are hard to do. You should try.

When I was in college, I briefly dated this girl name Jenn. She sat in front of me in my sociology theory class. We also new each other from the college radio station. She was a bit of a player, or absolutely a player, well before that word was popular. In class, she would sometimes grab my foot and hold it. She told me that, while she wasn't all that into me, she felt at ease opening up to me in was that she didn't with other people. Could have been a line because she was good at those things. At the time, I was also dating this guy who told me, straight up, that he loved me but was not in love with me. He often asked if I understood the difference.

Jenn and I both had shirts with snaps because we were hipsters and that was sort of the thing to do. She asked me to tear her shirt off, snap! snap! snap! She would also do this to me. It is something that thrills me to do. I currently have two shirts with snaps, and I highly recommend you yank my shirt open when you see me.

Try this: draw a snap right now. Do it. Now pull my shirt open and see what happens. Be prepared. Outcomes vary, but are never good. I could be yours forever. I could be bitter and angry. But, could you do it anyway?

* Our English teacher insisted that we always talked about woodpeckers, which we did not. This did, however lead us to throwing woodpeckers into all of our conversations. We would draw pictures of them over and over. We researched bits of trivia. Anytime she looked our way, there they would be. We did not like that teacher much.

** No real reason for that.

Labels: childhood, friends, memories

Okay, most likely no one is reading my blog anymore. I became bored with it and probably you did, too. I am going to change it. It isn't going to be much about me anymore. My new theme is....

Props to my friends!

I may even start a new blog. I will let you know. Please stay tuned.

Labels: friends, trying to be positive

Gwennie, Connie, Some Guy and I are hanging out at Connie's place in LA. What would any boy want to do when alone with three girls? Put his face in m&ms, obviously.

It has long been the dream of Some Guy to put his face in m&ms. It isn't something that I can explain or even care to understand. I only know that Connie has made his dream come true. She's like Disneyland or Disney World or some crap.

Connie, Gwen, and Some Guy are also blogging about this. Though I have not read them, I am certain their posts are funnier. Read those instead.

Labels: friends

tonight my friend penny* and i were discussing our friend anne. i commented that i had called her on saturday but never heard back even though i thought she was planning to. i have tried to get in touch with anne a few times since then, too. i remarked to penny that she could easily be dead. penny noted that if we were going by the last time she had spoken to anne, she could have been dead since may. we wondered if anne were actually dead we would hear about it. would anne's parents know how to reach us or even if they should try? i think they would put some effort into finding me, but maybe not. i know that if penny were to die i would hear about it through my friend david. likewise, if i were to die, david would tell penny.



after penny, i talked to my mother. she was agitated when i told her this. she doesn't know how to get in touch with my friends. if something awful happened to me she wouldn't know what to do. if i died, she wouldn't know who to invite to the party. she also wouldn't know who to call if i fell ill with spinal meningitis and needed to be taken care of. when we were kids, she had a folder that she wrote information on. somethings were in the folder, but a lot of it was actually on the folder.** contact information for families, friends, and neighbors. my mom doesn't have that for me anymore and she needs it.



if you want on the list, please let me know. i will send your information to my mom. you will not be invited to my funeral otherwise. anne, you do not need to email because 1) you never email, 2) i assume you would want to know, and 3) you are already dead and it isn't like someone is going to drag your corpse to the funeral. but i hope you aren't dead because that would make me look like a real asshole.



* not real names



** on the phone earlier, my mom called it the orange folder, even though i am fairly sure it is green and has always been green, even though it is not the original green folder. sometimes i almost believe my mother when she says she is color blind. the only problem is that it has always been a green folder and she should just learn to call it that even if she can't distinguish the two colors apart.

Labels: death, friends, mom

do you ever hope and hope that something will happen that has zero chance of occurring? this afternoon i am going somewhere that will ultimately likely be useful, but certainly not in the short run.

on another note, thank you to a friend who has helped me come up with a reason to make toys and trinkets. you will get a lovely present for thanksgiving.

Labels: friends

okay, am i the only one on earth who is not just kinda sick, but actually really sick of sally field? because i am. i guess i got worn out after gidget. sure, i wanted her for my valentine then but stop making those sad eyes or talking really fast when you are angry or looking so shocked at something we all saw coming. just chill out.

sorry, that isn't really what i was going to write about. it just didn’t seem to warrant a post all of its own. anyway…

about a month ago, when careyoke was here, it actually got cold. cold enough to freeze. i was supposed to drive to one of my communities for work, and i pulled into a gas station before i got on the road because, well, my tank was pretty much totally empty. my gas tank has one of those little doors that you pop open with a lever on the floor by the driver’s side door. i lean over, yank, and … nothing. yeah. nothing. it doesn’t budge. okay, i pull it again with the same result. it is frozen. now, i am from texas and we don’t have cold, cold winters, so you might think this was some dumb problem that i have just yet to experience but that everyone goes through up here. thing is, i have lived through winter in madison before. i have lived through very, very cold winters. not only that, my car has lived through cold winters. and the gas tank door has always come open.

i drive to a different gas station because the one where i am doesn’t even have an inside, just a booth where you pay for gas and buy cigarettes. i try the lever again, but it still doesn’t work. i call jon all freaked out because i am supposed to be in lodi, wisconsin. i tell him that my gas tank is frozen closed. he says i should poor hot water on it. how? how do i do that? anyway, i get angry with him for offering me no good advice. i call my mom. she tells me to pry it open. i get mad at her for the same reason. my mom calls the toyota dealership in houston, but they don’t know what to say. she calls back. i kind of apologize. i decided to skip lodi and just go home.

i head down park street. my car sounds weird. i am terrified that i am going to run out of gas and have no way to add any. i glide into a midas station. i leave my car there because they are about to close for the night. i call tara or careyoke or jj, i can’t remember which, and they are all in the car together on their way to get dinner. so they save me and we get eats.

the next morning, i get my car. overnight in the garage, the cable thawed and the door could be opened. they tell me there was moisture on the line. they tell me they put silicon on it and that it shouldn’t happen any more. they put silicon on the cable running to the trunk, too, because the automatic trunk popping thing is frozen, too. they don’t charge me and i am happy and i go fill up my tank.

fast forward to this monday. i am on my way to columbus, wisconsin, where there is a christopher columbus museum because, you know, it is where his ship touched ground, and i stop to get gas. after a million days of warmth, it is finally cold enough to freeze. the door to my gas tank won’t open. i turn my heat up high and drive to sun prairie wisconsin. i figure if i get to sun prairie and am able to get gas, i will keep going. if i can’t open the tank, i will turn around and go home. the tank won’t open. i drive to jon’s house because he has a driveway. i drive with the heat on high. i check the lever at every stop light. it opens a block from his house. i fill up the tank. i close the door.

flash back to summer. did i forget to tell you that my car flooded?

flash forward from summer to this wednesday (i am getting kind of back to the future here and am about to marry my own mom). i am at the toyota dealership. they don’t understand what i am saying about the door not opening. a mechanic makes me pull the lever. nothing happens. he asks me to pull it again, i don’t know why. not surprisingly, it doesn’t open. he tugs on it. he gets some other guy to tug on it. they decide that they will leave it in their garage for 30-45 minutes until it thaws and then try to figure something out. i watch CNN in the customer lounge. i realize that the ice storms in texas are worse than i thought. i finally call my family. they are fine.

after 30-45 minutes my gas tank door could be opened. they decide that if they remove all of the ice from around the cable everything will be just fine. they say that if it isn’t i can order the part. they shut the door to the tank. i drive to work. by the evening, the cable is frozen again. i drive to cottage grove without issue. on the way home, i turn the heat up really, really high. i go to jon’s house because he still has a driveway. i leave my car idling in his drive way. after 10 minutes, i check to see if i can open the tank. no, but the lever to my trunk moves freely. wait! it moves freely because it is broken! most likely, it is completely disconnected from the cable! i curse but then shrug because i can still open the trunk with my key. i go back inside. jon drinks a beer. i ask about dinner (i love dinner). 10 minutes later, i check and the lever can finally move. the door eases open. i leave it open, turn off my car, go inside jon’s apartment, and complain about wanting dinner. we decide to cook something at my house and head over there without stopping for gas. i park on the street by my apartment. it is silly, i know, but i am worried about leaving the door open. not because i think someone is going to siphon gas, but because i think someone will walk by and close it. i would because i would assume that the owner of the car forgot or pulled the wrong lever or something. i try to figure out a way for the door to sort of close but not all the way close. i push and poke the door a few times. i realize that i have actually closed the door. i worry for a second until i realize that the door hasn’t stayed closed. why? because now it is broken in the open position. i don’t laugh.

if you want to siphon gas from my car, you know where i live.

where i don’t live, though, are any number of small towns to which i have to travel. lodi (population 2,929), marshall (population 3,432), waterloo (population 3,259), cambridge (population 1,227), deerfield (population 1,971), columbus (population 4,479), and fall river (population (1,097).

do you know what is different about these towns as compared to my “hometown”? main street. there is no main street where i am from, despite the fact that it is a real hometown. do you know what is the same if you compare madison with the smaller towns? main street. do you know what is different about these main streets? in small towns, main street is in fact the main street. in madison, it is kind of unassuming. i am easily able to forget it exists. i crossed it today. i cross it whenever i go to jon’s to let my car idle with the heat on. today i remembered to notice that it was main street. i guess main street goes to the capital, but it is not a street i would ever take to the capital. state street for sure. definitely the wash. not main street.

small towns, like my car and sally field, don’t make much sense to me.

Labels: friends, fucked up, pity party, worry

well, i think i am losing another friend. i feel like i maybe don't know how to interact with other people. it feels strange because i didn't have friends growing up, and i finally did my senior year of high school. clare, emily, tori, kim, mike, jesson, michelle. that is more than i act like it was. i was a pariah for many years, but i finally found people who liked me anyway. then in college, it became easier and easier to make friends. i mean, the pool became so much bigger. monrovia, grace, sean, henry, carole, gary, alexis, kayla, aubrey, lisa, delia. a year in new haven knocked me down to craig, katherine, and julie. grad school, and things shot up again. strangely, the older i get, the more of my friends decide that i am no good. that i am not a good person.

it is strange to be thirty and still feel that there is such upheaval in my life. much of it is my fault. sometimes i just lose touch with certain people. i just don't call. i get absorbed in something or someone else. my priorities get out of whack.

i guess what i am asking is if there is anyone out there who will watch little miss sunshine with me? my parents said it was good. my mom keeps asking if i have watched it yet. if you know me, give send me an email.

Labels: complaining, friends, questions

so, i realized, after buying a new celllll phone on saturday, that i don't have my voice mail activated, and i have no clue how to check it.

yeah, i assume that my friends would have told me this when they did reach me. which sort of leads me to believe that i have no friends...

uh, give me a call?

Labels: complaining, friends

my friend carole, who just finished a master's program in library science (or whatever they call it these days), just got a job in nashville! rock on, carole. for the suprising number of librarians who read my blog, here is some smut for you!

Labels: friends

1. it always sounds funny to me when i say, "my neurologist..."

2. jon and i had a great idea tonight. a cd compliation of the originals of the songs weird al has parodied. well, he has an extensive discography, so maybe a "best of" sort of thing. jon said that he didn't want to have to sit through all of "lola" and "american pie." i like lola.

3. connie, jenna, and i were talking on friday about how greatful we are that we were in high school when grunge was really big. girls today must feel a hell of a lot of pressure about their bodies and clothes. when we were younger, we just threw on oversized t-shirts< with a flannel on top, and headed out the door! my favorite flannel was brown. i think i wore it twice a week. i had a very specific rotation.

4. the people in my neighborhood were obviously not raised by my mother. she would not be happy at all about the number of fireworks going off in the parking lot behind my house. someone could get hurt.

* jeremy points out that i have the wrong "their" in the title. oops. i make this mistake about 10 times a day. can't we just pick one? english blows chunks. i'm switching to esperanto.

Labels: friends, jeremy, jon

well, i hadn't had a seizure in quite a long time (2 weeks?), but this holiday weekend was a busy one for me. a seizure saturday, a seizure sunday (while waiting for jeremy and sal to cross the finish line at the mad city marathon), and something not quite like my normal seizures last night. could they be carole's fault? perhaps she brought them on. epileptogenic carole, that's what we call her.

Labels: epilepsy, friends